jebel-ali lake

Last night whilst I was watching some nasty reality show on TV, actually "the spa of embarrassing illness" I am ashamed to admit, and waiting for Stu to get back from his business trip, I suddenly noticed that I could no longer hear the TV over a strange roaring / dripping sound. My first thought was that the geyser had burst. After dashing around the downstairs of the villa for a few panicked moments I realised that the noise was coming from outside. I opened the front door a crack to be confronted by what can only be called bucketing rain! It didn't last long as per normal, but my goodness did it come down hard. I am not sure if it rained during the night as well, but it started up again this morning at around 7am, thunder and lightening and all as well.

[nasty deep puddles due to no drainage]

The net result of all this sudden water, coupled with insufficient drainage in most places, is that many roads are turned into mini lakes. In fact getting to work this morning was more challenging than usual, I got 90% of the way only to be confronted at the last intersection with a massive amount of water. Even the guy in the Ford Explorer turned around. So instead of being brave (stupid?) I retraced my steps and went an "alternate" route, actually a dirt track the guys constructing the new intersection on SZR use to get in and out of the area near our new office. The exciting part was that I had to use the four times four mode on my car for the first time as the mud was extremely slippery in places. Needless to say dust camouflage experiment #28, which ended on Monday when I had the car washed for the first time after our holiday, has been superseded by mud splatter effect #2. My poor car is filthy!